Portland school leaders renew talks on consolidating its 3 high schools

Big changes could be coming to Portland schools. The district is discussing plans to consolidate its three high schools – Casco Bay, Deering and Portland – into one campus serving around 2,200 students.

At a town hall Wednesday night, Superintendent Ryan Scallon, Director of Secondary Academic Access and Outcomes Pamela Otunnu and other district leaders pitched their idea for a consolidated school, renewing a discussion that is likely to continue over several years as the district considers how to tackle its aging infrastructure.

“We need to be planning for the future,” said Scallon.

The plan is very much in the concept phase and district leaders said they are looking for community engagement – though Wednesday’s meeting had only sparse public participation. Those who publicly commented on the district’s plan said they want to retain some amount of school choice, especially for neurodivergent students or those who struggle in other ways, and create programs that don’t allow students to get lost in a large system.

Broadly, district leaders said they want to build a new, state-of-the-art campus complete with science labs, fine arts studios, performance spaces and athletic facilities. They also want to offer career and technical training and college courses to all students.

They believe building a brand new high school rather than renovating its existing three schools is likely to be more cost-effective and best allow the district to offer a wide variety of opportunities to all students.

Scallon said it is too early to say how much the consolidation might cost – it would depend on a lot of factors including location, which is also unknown, and whether Portland Adult Education and other programs would be included in the consolidation.

The school district plans to apply for various forms of state funding. The state funds major school capital construction projects on a five-year cycle, and applications for the next cycle of funding are due on Aug. 30, 2024. The state ranks applications in order of need and funds the projects it determines most urgent based on several factors, such as the condition of school buildings and grounds, overpopulation and need for new programs.

Portland has applied for this money before. In the last cycle, it was ranked 15th out of 74 schools that applied. The state only funded nine projects.

District leaders said they understand that creating a consolidated school would be a big change for Portland, which has long boasted school choice and its smaller high schools.

“The challenges of this project will be to honor all of the great work that has been done and is being done at each of these schools as we imagine something new,” said Priya Natarajan, the newly appointed principal of Casco Bay High School.

Natarajan said at Wednesday’s meeting she recognizes that each school is unique and is important to the community, but that a consolidated school could “integrate the many successful practices from all of our existing schools into a new facility.”

District leaders threw out a few different models for a consolidated school that they said would still provide a sense of community and choice for students. Those included breaking the school up into programs such as language immersion, expeditionary learning, International Baccalaureate and early college.